August 5, 2024

Resignation of Sheikh Hasina

Sheikh Hasina flees Bangladesh as the army chief announces her resignation

She never announced it herself. The army chief told the country she had resigned — and two months later the president said he had no documentary evidence of the letter.

The March to Dhaka reaches Ganabhaban

On 5 August 2024 a mass march advanced through Dhaka toward Ganabhaban, called after the student-led movement narrowed to a single demand for the government's resignation. Crowds defied curfew and the army largely declined to stop them by force.

Sheikh Hasina left her official residence and fled the country with her sister, Sheikh Rehana, travelling first by military helicopter and then aboard a Bangladesh military aircraft that reached Hindon Air Force Station near Delhi that evening.

Protesters entered and ransacked Ganabhaban after she had gone — the best-supported sequence is departure first, then entry.

The announcement came from a general

Hasina made no public statement. Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman addressed the nation, said she had resigned and announced that an interim government would be formed.

That evening President Mohammed Shahabuddin met the service chiefs, political parties, civil-society figures and student representatives to begin assembling an administration.

The army's announcement was not the civilian handover: parliament was dissolved on 6 August, and a 17-member interim government under Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus was sworn in on 8 August.

A resignation nobody can produce

The flight and the transfer of power are well established. The formal resignation is not: Shahabuddin said on 5 August that Hasina had submitted a letter which he accepted, and in October said he had no documentary evidence of that letter.

That gap matters constitutionally, and an unqualified account of a completed formal resignation leaves it out.

What is documented is the end of roughly fifteen continuous years of Hasina's premiership, from January 2009 to August 2024.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The flight and transfer of power on August 5 are well established, but the formal resignation is disputed. Shahabuddin said in his August 5 address that Hasina submitted a letter which he accepted; in October he said he had no documentary evidence of that letter.
Hasina did not publicly announce her resignation herself. General Waker-uz-Zaman announced it after she had departed.
Reports differ on some timings and the precise flight sequence. India's foreign minister officially confirmed that Bangladesh requested flight clearance at short notice and that Hasina arrived near Delhi that evening.